The Octopus

The Swanhilda cast off from the docks at Port Costa two days after Presley had left Bonneville and the ranches and made her way up
to San Francisco, anchoring in the stream off the City front. A
few hours after her arrival, Presley, waiting at his club, received
a despatch from Cedarquist to the effect that she would clear early
the next morning and that he must be aboard of her before midnight.

He sent his trunks aboard and at once hurried to Cedarquist's
office to say good-bye. He found the manufacturer in excellent
spirits.

"What do you think of Lyman Derrick now, Presley?" he said,
when Presley had sat down. "He's in the new politics with a vengeance, isn't he? And our own dear Railroad openly acknowledges
him as their candidate. You've heard of his canvass."

"Yes, yes," answered Presley. "Well, he knows his business best."
But Cedarquist was full of another idea: his new venture --
the organizing of a line of clipper wheat ships for Pacific and
Oriental trade -- was prospering.

"The Swanhilda is the mother of the fleet, Pres. I had to buy her, but the keel of her sister ship will be laid by the time she discharges at Calcutta. We'll carry our wheat into Asia yet. The
Anglo-Saxon started from there at the beginning of everything and
it's manifest destiny that he must circle the globe and fetch up
where he began his march. You are up with procession, Pres, going
to India this way in a wheat ship that flies American colours. By
the way, do you know where the money is to come from to build the
sister ship of the Swanhilda? From the sale of the plant and scrap
iron of the Atlas Works. Yes, I've given it up definitely, that business. The people here would not back me up. But I'm working off
on this new line now. It may break me, but we'll try it on. You
know the 'Million Dollar Fair' was formally opened yesterday.
There is," he added with a wink, "a Midway Pleasance in connection with the thing. Mrs. Cedarquist and our friend Hartrath 'got
up a subscription' to construct a figure of California -- heroic size
-- out of dried apricots. I assure you," he remarked with prodigious
gravity, "it is a real work of art and quite a 'feature' of the Fair.
Well, good luck to you, Pres. Write to me from Honolulu, and bon

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